Projects All The Twos: 1962 Mercury, 352cui, 2bbl, Too Many Doors.

Almost over the hill of cleaning gritty, oily, concrete encrusted crud if everything I’m also sure someone’s Labrador has been shredded under here at some point there was a lot of fur stuck to the sump!



Hopefully make a start on stripping the heads tomorrow and sorting broken studs.

 

Success! I started off trying to drill them out on the pillar drill, but I’m basically a clutz when it comes to that, it wasn’t going anywhere near centre so dug the MIG out and banged it up to max under the assumption it wouldn’t stick to the casting anyway.

 

Passenger side exhaust face isn’t too bad, looks like it might have been re-faced in the past.



Driver’s side isn’t so pretty.


Think that will need a skim. Might get the shop to do valves too as I think I just broke my finger

 

Hey, if you are a true fe owner, you gotta habe few extra exh gaskets, or do it right and resurface head and manifold and not use any gasket.

 

Thanks both, it’s definitely getting gaskets, not going with Henry Jr’s penny pitching idea! I’d seen those Remflex ones in a Mustang place over here then promptly forgotten about them.

@Jeff Norwell which one of your cars has an FE?

 

I just started catching up on your 352 thread Jeff, I’d missed it somehow.

 

I used to make my own gaskets from leftover dead-soft copper at work. Around .050" thick worked well and deformed while it was socked down.

 

Got a couple of valves out of one of the heads


Guides, especially the exhaust, aren’t good. Was hoping to get away with just lapping the valves in. Bugger! Will see if I can get them down the engine place tomorrow.

 

There’s some of the perforated metal ones in the gasket set, I’ll give those a try. They’re quite thick and squidgy.

 

Dropped the heads off at the engine place, dumped them straight in the parts washer, saves me a job! They’re going to strip and assess whether it needs valves as well as guides and a seat job.

Go one of the rocker shafts apart for cleaning


Knocked the plugs out of the shaft and cleaned the gloop out of the inside, really glad someone else is doing the heads!


Stopped off at the paint place on the way home and got some paint for the rocker covers. Um’d and Ah’d about this for a while. Gold seems the go to colour but I didn’t think it’d be a good choice with the car being gold too. I liked the contrast of the original bluey green so I’ve chosen a bright turquoise.

 

Those perforated metal gaskets has not hold very good in long run.just my personal experience.
Do as you like.you been warned.

 

I’ve always thrown them in the bin, but someone said they worked quite well so thought I’d give them a try.

 

Nice to see you're making solid progress and - knock on wood - no major horrors. I hear you on the color but where I am for me gold is a must (I doubt anyone here in Austria is aware that Mercury used gold rocker covers and black block, any car which had engine work would have been painted standard blue. Not that we have many...).

 

They also used red and bluey/green too I think. The rocker cover colour is at least something that’s easy to change.

 

63 390 2v engines where green/turqoise valve covers and air cleaner.
4v where castilian gold.
Im pretty sure 62 352 2v is green/turqoise too.

 

65 or 66 mercury went ford blue.
64 was gold covers black block

 

More cleaning


Everything has a greyish deposit, I’m guessing from combustion gasses, it it’s not something I recall seeing before and it’s not coming off



Got a steel head gasket that’s 20thou compressed thickness, I measured the original FoMoCo one at 26thou and most of the composite ones are over 40thou, so should get us close to 9:1 cr

 

What’s the thoughts on electric choke vs an exhaust heated one (which is stock)?

I’ve run no choke, manual choke and electric ones but never the exhaust type. The tube is blocked and I’m sure that trying to remove the tube and the closing plate on the exhaust manifold is asking for trouble. Other side of the equation is having to find an ignition switched 12v feed in the engine bay.

 

I had a bunch of '64 Fords, all valve covers were blue on the 352. My aunt had a '65 LTD, those were gold.,

 

My last 352, I had a manual choke on it.

 

Ford, yes. mercury , no.

 

I really don’t want a manual choke as I’ll have to add a cable and mount it inside. Think I’m going to go electric assuming I just need to change the bi-metallic coil. I reckon digging into this is going to end up screwing the pooch.


Pistons and rods left to clean then I’ll have to make a decision if I wait for the cam to put it in first or get on with assembling the bottom end.

 

One thing I noticed that I’ve never seen on anything before is the timing cover bolts have a plastic insert, I’m guessing to make them shakeproof.

 

Tried out the paint for the rocker cover paint.


After painting the oil filler tube I realised I’d not actually tried it in the Offenhauser intake. I’m assuming they’re a stock size?

 

Tim, do you have a alt on it? If so you can run the electric choke to the sta post on it. That way the choke only gets power when the alt is turning. Makes a simple hook up.

 

I just backed up and seen the picture of your freshly painted gen, so guess my advise is useless.

 

I hear you on the choke but perhaps there's a way to have the cable knob mounted under the dash where no one can see any holes? I hate auto chokes (electric or water heated) because in my experience after a while they can deteriorate and you end up with a partially open choke (not always obvious) with the obvious consequences. On my car I disabled the choke until I get to recondition the carb but, to be honest, the car starts no probs even without a choke (really if the accelerator pump works, the Ford carb is not unlike a Weber in this respect). But hey that's just me.

 

Thanks Dennis. The only thing I can think of at the moment is the windscreen washer feed if its switched via the key.